


Some Nonverbal Miscommunication

by saruma_aki



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Miscommunication, implied/reference child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 08:39:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16950675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saruma_aki/pseuds/saruma_aki
Summary: They're two big personalities trying to coexist in a relationship. Arguments—they're second nature to them. It's bound to happen, and, if Steve's being honest, it's more of a case of pent up energy and the closest target is almost always each other.ORIn which, neither Steve or Billy are stellar at communicating, and sometimes their fights are more insightful than they could ever know.





	Some Nonverbal Miscommunication

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, okay, so I was writing this as a small plot bunny because I've read stories where Billy is unintentionally too aggressive with Steve and gets too into his business, but I've yet to see one about Steve maybe doing the same (because we've all seen that Steve can get just as aggressive). So, I decided to just write it.
> 
> Enjoy!

The first time they fight, it’s aggressive and loud and brutal. Steve thinks that there’s things yelled that should never have been, thinks that there’s been things done that shouldn’t have been, but he thinks that it also might be pretty mundane considering its two big personalities trying to coexist in a relationship.

All things considered, he counts his lucky stars that it didn’t end way worse.

In the end, they end up falling into bed together, ignoring the destroyed lamp lying shattered on the floor and the pens scattered on the other side. They ignore the things spit out in the heat of the moment, and Steve thinks nothing of crowding Billy into the corner and tearing into him after the lamp is torn from its socket on the way down to the ground, bulb and vase shattering.

When it comes to their second fight, Steve hears in the back of his head, clear as a bell, Billy hissing at Max that when he’s angry, he breaks things. He thinks of it as Billy grips and tears pages out of the notebook he was using, pushing away from the desk and standing to match Steve, blue eyes blazing and muscles flexing beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. Steve thinks of those words and they set something off inside of him, and he’s shifting, crowding Billy back into the desk, hissing and spitting, getting the upper hand in an argument he doesn’t even know how started—although he’s pretty sure he threw the first blow.

Getting up in Billy’s face, he thinks, is the fastest way to end an argument. He doesn’t even have to lay a hand on him, and most of their fights stay verbal only because of it. All he has to do is crowd into Billy, get equally as aggressive, and Billy just stares at him, and the fight’s over after that.

They reconcile an hour later, and it’s all good—they’re good.

 

 

 

He doesn’t think much of it—there’s not much to think of, anyways. They don’t fight that often, surprisingly, and the fights don’t escalate that far. They’re hardly about anything serious to begin with—mostly just them needing to blow off some steam and latching onto the nearest target which is almost always each other.

Steve assumes it’s just Billy needing someone to match up with him—someone to give it as much as he is. And it makes sense, all kinds of sense, to Steve, so there’s nothing to think of. Billy wanted someone who could go toe to toe with him, and Steve’s more than willing to match him blow for blow. Neither of them are about an unequal partnership. It just works.

It’s only around their seventh fight as a couple that Steve begins to wonder, has the barest of nigglings in the back of his mind that maybe, just maybe, his method isn’t the best for ending an argument.

They’re arguing about a course of action to take for the sudden rise in Upside Down related activity, and Billy—with all of his advanced classes and surprising amount of intelligence, Steve shouldn’t have even been surprised he figured it all out and inserted himself into the group almost flawlessly—is growling about how a direct approach is needlessly risky. He’s advocating for waiting for an established pattern, but the kids are arguing back, Steve included, that more people might die, that whatever is letting the Mindflayer through might be getting stronger and waiting would risk it being too powerful.

It devolves from there, and Steve can feel his annoyance climbing as Billy restates his claim, talks about how people are going to die anyways and that moving before they think it through completely risks disrupting the pattern and giving away whatever advantage they might have.

And Steve gets it, kind of, but he also gets that his stomach churns at the prospect of the Upside Down, and his heart speeds up in his chest, and his palms sweat, and he wakes up with a scream lodged in his throat in the middle of the night with the vision of a flower petal maw opening up to devour him burned into his retinas. And his annoyance—it climbs and climbs and climbs, and he’s screaming back at Billy, voice dropping lower as he shifts closer, and, with the kids around, Steve doesn’t want to risk Billy breaking anything, especially when most of the nearby objects are glass.

Steve doesn’t think his parents would be very enthused about one of their figurines ending up broken.

So, he crowds and he crowds, and he keeps going until he has Billy backed up against the couch and his voice has dropped into a hiss. Billy’s fallen quiet a while ago, and the kids are but a distant chatter to Steve’s ears, all of his focus honed in on tamping down Billy’s anger and nipping the fight in the bud.

It works, like it always does, and Billy’s standing there, staring at him with those bright baby blues framed by ridiculously long lashes, slightly wide and expectant, waiting for something Steve isn’t sure what is.

There’s a tension between them, but Steve can never tell if it’s good or bad. All he knows is that it’s thick in the air between them, almost suffocating, until he takes a step back, then another, gives enough room for Billy to push away from the back of the couch and move past him, not even knocking their shoulders together, before he’s disappearing to who knows where. 

He turns back to the gang, and continues on as if nothing happened, like he always does, like they always do, and he doesn’t think anything about it until Will edges away from the group and escapes out through the side door to where the pool is. His eyes follow the movement, and he thinks of Barb being snatched in his pool and of how Will is essentially a magnet for the Upside Down, and he leaves the kids to continue talking, moving to the side door to peer around the curtains and make sure everything’s fine.

Billy’s sitting on a lounge chair, and Will is in the one next to his. He can’t hear what they’re saying, if they’re even talking, but he can see how Will’s head is turned towards Billy, tilted up to look at his face, and the way the zippo shakes in Billy’s fingers, flame dancing, as he lights the cigarette between his lips.

He thinks of Billy’s steady hands, always steady, even at his angriest, and frowns, but he turns away from the window, moving back to the group, figuring that Will’s safe if Billy’s there with him. He meets Max’s eyes over the heads of the other three and gives an awkward thumbs up to show everything’s fine before moving to reinsert himself into the discussion, aware that he’s who’s going to have to catch Billy, Jonathan, and Nancy up—maybe Hopper, too, depending.

It’s only about ten minutes later that Will comes back in, sans Billy, and he’s giving Steve a look that he can’t quite decipher, but it’s not the same accepting look usually on his face. It’s colder, more guarded, and there’s a hint of sadness and vulnerability in his wide eyes that Steve can’t determine the origin of. It makes him feel distinctly uncomfortable, and he wishes that Billy were next to him to make him feel a bit more at ease and not like the odd one out in a group of kids.

When did this become his life?

It’s when the kids are leaving that the doubt starts to set in. Dustin and Lucas and praising him for his handling of Billy, mimicking the scene together like it was something out of a movie, snickering with their heads bowed together like the kids they are.

“It was awesome, Steve. I don’t know what it is you’ve been doing, but glad to know you’ve got a muzzle on that guy,” Dustin chortles, and usually his awe would make something warm light up in his stomach, but this time, it makes him feel unsettled watching how Dustin crowds Lucas back into the couch, and how Lucas cowers like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Will watches the scene with what can only be disgust, while Max looks mildly unsettled. Mike has a grin lighting up his face, and Steve kind of wishes he had the power to look at a scene outside of his body because—

That’s not how it happened.

Billy and him—their fights don’t go like that. Billy doesn’t cower. He stares, locks eyes with Steve, wide and blue and oh-so beautiful, and lets his jaw loosen to seem nonchalant, and meets him in the middle like always. He lets Steve go toe to toe with him, lets it happen because it’s how they work. It’s what they do.

They’re two big personalities trying to somehow survive a relationship together that’s somehow working, and it’s not like that at all.

But Will has a haunted look in his eyes, and Max’s shoulders are hunching up a bit by her ears even as she’s setting her jaw—a familiar clench and jut that Steve’s seen Billy do when he’s steeling himself for a fight, be it for something as mundane as what show they’re watching to whether or not Steve should go to college and give life outside of Hawkins a shot. Those expressions are a sharp contrast to the grins on the faces of the other three, and, despite being outnumbered, those expressions are the ones that stick with him when they’ve all been dropped off and he’s closing the door to his house behind him.

Billy’s blue baby is still in the driveway, looking out of place with Steve’s house as the backdrop, and that makes Steve smile, turning to look around the inside of his house in search for his boyfriend.

He finds Billy lying on the couch, one of Steve’s sweats stretched around the meat of his thighs, bare feet pressing into the arm of the couch as he watches the television lazily. There’s a glass of water, delicately placed atop of a coaster, just like Steve always reminds him, and the volume is lower than Billy usually puts it but right at the level Steve enjoys it at this time at night. It makes his lips stretch into a fond smile, eyebrows scrunching slightly as he lets sock clad feet carry him around the couch and to lift Billy’s legs, sitting beneath them and letting his palms press against the muscles of his legs.

“What are we watching,” he hums, slipping his hands under the fabric of the pant legs, nails scraping lightly against the hair and soft skin. Billy shifts, an unconscious smile twitching at the corners of his lips as the touch tickles, blue eyes scrunching as he shifts, shirt hiking up at the side of his hip. Steve eyes the tan slip skin before returning his attention to toying with the hairs on Billy’s legs.

“No idea,” he mumbles. There’s a sleepy crease to his face, eyelids drooping, long lashes brushing at his cheeks, and Steve kind of wants to coo at the sight, but he knows that their relationship is always tender after a fight, and after having one in front of people—Steve doesn’t really know the protocol for this.

“Do you want to just go to sleep right now,” he ventures, rubbing his thumb along the inside of Billy’s ankle. The fact that Billy stayed is a good thing, he knows, so he’s trying to work with that and feel things out as he goes.

“Do you,” Billy responds with, and it catches Steve a little bit off guard, the flipping of the question. It’s a bit more confrontational in structure than usual, but the words lack the strength behind it, softened to a genuine inquiry more than anything else.

Steve shrugs. “I don’t know. The exhaustion of dealing with children hasn’t set in yet.” It’s an attempt a joke, but it falls flat in the silence, echoing between them.

Billy nods, makes a slight snuffling sound as he shifts, before he’s settling against the cushions once more, shoulders hunched up by his ears just slightly, arms loosely crossed over his chest. It looks like its defensive and for comfort at the same time, and Steve again feels like he’s walking into unknown territory. He’s on his back, which is odd because Steve knows Billy hardly ever lays on his back, and his head is turned towards the television, the skin of his neck on full display, blonde curls cupped around his ear and resting upon his shoulder.

Steve’s grip tightens on Billy’s ankle, thumb nail scraping lightly against the skin. He thinks Billy stiffens, barely hiding a jump, and it amuses him a little at how ticklish Billy is, has him relaxing his hold. “We’re,” he pauses, licks his lips, fingers tightening again on Billy’s ankle, nerves making his heart stutter in his chest, “we’re good, right?”

Billy looks at him with those wide blue eyes, and there’s that expectation, anticipation, in his gaze again that Steve doesn’t understand. He nods his head, though, and his lips twitch into the barest hint of a smile for a second before the expression’s gone and he’s turning his eyes back to the screen.

Steve relaxes his grip, lets his heart slow, and looks at the screen, as well, finally taking note that he actually likes this show.

 

 

 

Maybe he didn’t think about it hard enough, then, or maybe he didn’t think about it at all then—but he’s thinking about it now, looking down in surprise at Will Byers as he wields his box of crayons like a weapon, wedging himself in between him and Billy. He’s at the Byers house, and he doesn’t remember what it was they were arguing about now in the face of Will’s righteous anger.

“Will,” Jonathan called out, sitting up in his seat in surprise, Nancy standing next to him, eyes wide. Steve meets her eyes, and they’re as wide as his are, as all of theirs are.

Will doesn’t listen, or doesn’t react, reaching behind himself to grab at Billy’s hand, and Steve watches as Billy, jaw clenching and setting, tilts his hand so that it’s easier to grab and allows—actually allows—Will to push him back in the direction of the door, box of crayons held in front of him like some sort of weapon, threatening to open and spill everything that gives it weight. It’s only when they’re near the door that Will drops the box to grab his coat and Billy’s before they’re both out through the door.

It swings shut, and there’s a moment of silence before they’re all bursting into action, rushing to the door and out to the porch, looking at Will in the car with Billy, Billy’s head pressed into the steering wheel. Will’s saying something, but none of them can hear. They all move as a unit, though, to surround the Camaro, tapping on the windows.

Steve really should know his boyfriend better, he figures, as he visibly sees the tension increase in Billy’s body, and he barely has time to shout at the others to get back before Billy’s hand is lashing out and cranking to reverse, Camaro turning and wrenching out of the driveway, tracks scoured into the earth.

“The hell was that,” Jonathan finally breathes out, turning accusatory eyes on Steve who can only raise his hands in defense, the same thought running through his head. “Well, get your coat. Your friend,” Jonathan spits the word out, “just kidnapped my brother.”

Steve winces internally, hurrying alongside Nancy to grab his coat and keys. It’s as he’s slipping his arms through the sleeves, though, that he stops, looking down at the keys grasped in his fingers. Why did Will get between him and Billy? They weren’t doing anything. It was a small fight—they don’t argue often. Why would Will—

“Steve, come on,” Nancy calls, and he hesitates again, bottom lip pulled between his teeth.

“Go ahead with Jonathan. I’ll be right behind you guys,” he calls back, and he hears the questioning noise she makes, but after a few seconds, he hears her exit the house. Once he’s sure he’s alone, he stumbles over to the phone, dialing the number for Joyce, foot tapping impatiently on the floor.

He knows Billy, knows he would never hurt any of the kids—especially Will. He had developed a weird fondness for the kid, much like Steve’s own relationship with Dustin, and Billy had been more entertaining himself with Will’s drawings during their conversation just now than actually participating with Jonathan, Nancy, and him. He only piped up once, and then that devolved into an argument, and an argument wasn’t conducive for getting them all to be friends, so Steve moved to shut it down quickly, and then—

“Hello,” Joyce’s voice comes through, staticky and warm.

“Hey, Ms. Byers,” he responds, feeling awkward in his own skin. “Is Will there?”

“He is. Billy just dropped him off.”

He hums in response, twisting the cord around his finger, only letting himself feel a little victorious that his hunch was correct. “Is Billy still there,” he whispers, and he feels antsy, like there’s electricity buzzing along his nerve endings and is refusing to let him stay still. Joyce makes a soft noise that sounds like affirmation, and he sighs shakily. “Did Will say why they left?”

There’s silence on the line, and it feels like judgment, like Joyce somehow knows exactly what it is what made Will react like that and it’s linked to Steve.

“Sweetie,” she starts with, and it has bile rising in his throat, palms sweating, “I think you and Billy need to have a serious talk as,” she pauses, “partners,” she continues, and Steve’s stomach twists tight because she knows—of course, she knows, but the way she says it, in the context of the conversation, makes it sound like he’s being given ‘the talk’ and has anxiety racing down his spine.

“About—about what, exactly,” he gets out through the ball in his throat.

Joyce is quiet, and it makes him even more anxious. “Look, Steve,” she begins, pauses, breathes, continues, “I haven’t seen a lot of you and Billy together, and you guys seem happy.” She stops again, and the pause feels a lot like a sniper taking aim. “But Will says that you’re very aggressive when you guys fight.”

“A—aggressive,” he repeats dumbly, heart plummeting. When was he aggressive? “I think he just misunderstood, Ms. Byers. I’ve never—I would never hurt Billy. Billy would never hurt me. It must’ve just seemed—I—I’ll talk to him. Can you,” he breathes, brow furrowed, headache building in the base of his skull, “can you tell him to go to my place?”

Joyce agrees, and he hangs up with a shaking hand.

They don’t end up talking about it. Billy is at his place by the time Steve gets there, sprawled on his bed, and a soft kiss turns into two and that turns into three until Steve can’t remember what it is he’s supposed to be doing.

 

 

 

He remembers two weeks later, staring into watery blues, hand pressing hard into solid bone and soft skin, fingers digging into delicate flesh—flesh he’s brushed kisses against and sucked into his mouth. And there’s no Will—there’s no one—near them, and Steve is watching a crystalline drop slide down a bruised cheek, and he feels sick.

“Billy,” he whispers, sounding loud in the seemingly deafening silence, hands loosening their hold, but Billy doesn’t move from where he’s pressed into the wall.

Steve hadn’t hit him—he would never. He would never hurt Billy. But Billy—Billy looks scared, looks downright terrified, his blue eyes wide with tears dripping down his cheeks, unbidden, and Steve doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what he did.

“Billy,” he repeats, and his raises his hand to brush away the tears, desperation making his own eyes burn. And that—that’s when he finally understands.

The wide baby blues shutter as Billy flinches back hard, head knocking against the wall from how quickly he moves, watching Steve with wide eyes. And the anticipation he could never understand finally makes sense.

Billy was expecting a hit, was waiting for Steve to smack him around—was dreading a blow being delivered.

And that—that was everything Steve had never wanted, ever, and he feels sick, hands shaking as he cups Billy’s face, ignores the tremors that ripple through Billy’s body as he presses closer. “Fuck—fuck, Billy,” he gasps, hoarse, as he drops his head forward to rest against Billy’s. “You know—why didn’t you—you should’ve—I should’ve,” he flounders, searching for the right words, searching for the right way to apologize for not noticing, not thinking, not asking. “You know I would never hit you, right? You know that, right?”

Billy doesn’t answer, and the tears are hot against Steve’s thumbs as he wipes them away with gentle caresses until Billy’s relaxing and pushing away from the wall and into Steve, seeking out of the comfort Steve wants so desperately to provide—because how had it gotten so fucked up so fast?

“Billy,” he whispers, brushes a feather light kiss to his forehead, just above his eyebrow, feeling the skin shift as Billy scrunches his face up, sniffling silently.

“I know,” he grumbles, and he sounds annoyed at himself, like he’s somehow at fault for this, and Steve wants to shake him and tell him that none of this is his fault, but the words won’t come out. So, they’re quiet for a bit, and Steve almost wants to pull away, to hide away and mull over every single fight and catalog every detail he missed and didn’t understand—look at how Will and Joyce reacted, how Max reacted, and feel sick because he should’ve seen it because the signs were so clear, and they were coming from more than just Billy.

He almost wants to do all of that, but then Billy is shifting closer, letting out a shuddering breath, hands shoving themselves into the pockets of his leather jacket, using his mitt-ed hands to lightly grip Steve’s hips, head tilting to the side and down, hiding his face from Steve. “I should’ve said something. I’m sorry,” he whispers finally, and Steve stiffens, frowning.

“You should’ve—Billy, I’m the one that should be sorry. I should’ve noticed; all the signs were there, and I didn’t even think—”

“You’re not a mind reader,” Billy interrupts, pulling away, and Steve takes a small step back so that Billy doesn’t end up against the wall again, but he’s reluctant to let more than that little bit of space grow between them. “We’re supposed to tell each other things. How else is this supposed to work? I just,” Billy lets out a little laugh, a scoffing sort of sound that grates on Steve’s nerves with its deprecating tone, “I couldn’t.”

“Why—why did you even think I would ever—I mean, you know I wouldn’t,” he stumbles, fumbles, as he mumbles the words, fingers hooking in Billy’s belt loops, hidden by the fall of the leather of his jacket.

He shrugs his shoulders almost helplessly, hip cocking and foot tapping in a way that tells Steve that Billy’s itching for a smoke, that he’s stressed and worried and vulnerable. “My dad—it’s a whole thing. And I would’ve deserved it, if it—if it was you. After what I did—have done—it was, I would’ve deserved it.”

“Fuck that,” Steve grumbles, tugging Billy a reluctant step closer, casting a cursory look at their surroundings as he tilted his head, let their noses rub together just slightly. “You would deserve none of it. And you don’t deserve it from your dad either. No one deserves that,” he whispers with a vehemence that surprises him a little bit—not because of the topic, but the passion behind his statement, pulled from deep inside of himself and unloading itself onto Billy. 

Laughingly enough, for all of the unloading done, Billy looks like a weight has been removed from his shoulders—tilts his head and lets their lips lock for a second in a brazen move of affection that they never risk in public. And it has Steve soaring, high up in the clouds, one hand coming up to cup the curve of Billy’s jaw, thumb brushing along dried tear tracks.

“Hey, guys,” Nancy calls, and Steve and Billy shift in unison, Billy turning so that his back is to Nancy, shoulders hunching, and Steve rotates so that he’s facing her, body half hiding Billy. It looks like they had been having a chat and not standing pressed front to front, lips a few scant centimeters apart. “El’s waking up,” she tells them, and her gaze is wary, but when Steve nods, she leaves—although not without a glance back.

“So,” Steve whispers, turning to meet Billy’s gaze, tilting his hand to lock fingers with him—if only for a brief moment, “are we good? I promise I won’t get all up in your space when we argue—and I definitely won’t put my hands on you, either.”

Billy meets his gaze, and his jaw is doing the clench, jut, thing that Steve knows so well—knows it means Billy’s trying to be brave, knows that it means that even if he says he believes Steve, a part of him still doubts it regardless of how small that part is—but he nods and smiles that small, private smile that always makes Steve want to curl up against him and never leave. “Yeah, we’re good. And I promise I’ll try not to break anything, too.”

“Good,” Steve answers, returning the smile with one of his own. “Although if you absolutely have to, try to make it that brown vase downstairs. I hate that thing.”

Billy snorts a laugh at that.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed that.
> 
> You can find me on instagram ( @saruma_aki ) or tumblr ( @saruma-aki ) if you ever want to chat.
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment! I could use the motivation. <3


End file.
